Starting Points

It wasn’t a cheap shot, but it sure did hurt. Phil Yancey passes along a conversation he had with a friend involved with Alcoholics Anonymous. "I asked him to name the one quality missing in the local church that AA had somehow provided. He stared at his coffee for a long time, and then said softly this one word: dependency.

“‘None of us can make it on our own – isn’t that why Jesus came?’ he explained. ‘Yet most church people give off a self-satisfied air of piety or superiority. I don’t sense them consciously leaning on God or on each other. Their lives appear to be in order. An alcoholic who goes to church feels inferior and incomplete.’”

Could this be true? Is there more vulnerability, understanding and support at AA than with a group of Christians? Have we created an environment that stifles or worse yet kills off honest sharing?

I’m sure all of us at some point have been burned by being vulnerable. We bared our soul only to bring upon ourselves more pain and resolutely determined to never be that honest again. So we set out on a journey of slowly dying inside.

What’s the answer for those of us who want to be real in a relationship? Who want to unload a burden in order to find the path of support and some victories? Who want the church to be a place of healing?

Good questions but who among us has those answers? I’m sure I don’t have pat answers for complex questions. Indulge me to suggest a few starting points to hopefully get us headed in that direction. Maybe a good starting point would be for us who presume to be leaders in the church to stop protecting ourselves and begin honestly sharing our struggles. Maybe a starting point for all of us who have been hurt is to be on the lookout for an appropriate person who aches for the same relationship. And maybe another starting point is for us to take a look inward to determine how approachable and open we are.

Maybe most of all we can learn from Phil Yancey’s AA friend and begin by acknowledging we have a problem with dependency. At least it’s a starting point.

Photo's from Daniel's trip to Moab, Utah